


Rose petal eclair

by Sheffield



Series: Dark!Gregor [3]
Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2013-07-19
Packaged: 2017-12-20 17:45:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheffield/pseuds/Sheffield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gregor invites his senior ImpSec staff to coffee and exquisite pastries</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rose petal eclair

Gregor arranged for each of the ImpSec Section Heads to be invited to tea at the Residence. It was important, he told Simon, that he knew the men who would step up and be the next generation of his senior officials. After all - neither of them said, but they both thought - Gregor would be working with these men a long time after Simon was gone.

It became a regular meeting; once a month, over coffee and exquisite pastries, between ten thirty and eleven on a Wednesday morning. Sometimes - very rarely - Simon couldn’t make it himself, but the audiences carried on without him, and he was careful to make sure he escorted his men there the first time they had a private audience. After that... well, if they were good enough to be a section head, they ought to be good enough to maintain a half hour conversation with their emperor without spilling their coffee or getting pastries down their shirts.

Haroche had been three times, once with Illyan when he was first appointed, once by himself about a year ago, when Simon had been out with the flu, and now today.

Gregor sat, pale and quiet, and watched them both drink their coffee and eat their pastries.

“I was wondering what your feelings were about the Sergyar transport,” Gregor was saying. Oh, yes - Simon had been wondering about that too. After all, they could afford to maintain the shuttle service to Sergyar: it paid for itself, if only in taking troops and settlers backwards and forwards. The colony wasn’t much of an economic success on its own, not yet, but taming it was the work of generations, surely? He was trying to track down where the insidious suggestion that the transport should be cut back was coming from but so far his agents had come back with nothing.

Gregor was playing with a small... something. A little brown pen, Illyan wondered? Then he corrected himself. Not a pen, too small. A bullet? No, a capsule. Was he sick? His chip showed him the timeline of the Emperor’s last three days, and of his last year’s medical visits, and found no overlap. So why was he taking tablets, and what for?

Gregor broke the little capsule, absently, and Illyan saw a puff of brown smoke that dissipated in a moment. Some emergency medical cache from Yuri’s day? The Residence was riddled with bolt holes and relics, after all. Gregor said nothing, casting the empty capsule aside in his saucer, and one of the armsmen swiftly removed it. If he hadn’t been watching carefully, Simon would have thought he’d imagined the whole thing.

“I’m trying to find out where the Sergyar rumours are originating, but there’s nothing so far,” he said calmly.

Gregor looked him in the eye and smiled. “Don’t worry about it, Simon.” He glanced over at Haroche and Simon had the distinct impression Gregor and Haroche knew something he didn’t.

Gregor stood up. Dismissal, plain as you like.

Haroche and Simon walked out of the residence together and got into separate cars for the ride back to Cockroach Central.

Simon wondered what had happened, and then let his chip remember it for him while he thought about the next thing.

***

In the residence, Gregor looked at the tray of little pastries and selected one, perfect, miniature rose petal eclair. It was the size of his finger, glistening with pale pink icing and finished with one exquisite sugared rose petal.

He carried it carefully betwen his fingers into his dressing room, where he removed a cork from a small hole in the wall at eye level. He had been right. The eclair was a perfect fit. He balanced it delicately in the hole, put his finger onto the end and... pushed.

It disappeared inside and he replaced the cork.


End file.
